A known roof apparatus is disclosed in JPH7-117582A (hereinafter referred to as Patent reference 1).
Illustrated in FIG. 6 is a configuration example of the known roof apparatus according to the Patent reference 1. As shown in FIG. 6, the roof apparatus 101 disclosed in Patent reference 1 includes a movable panel 120 for opening and closing an opening portion of a roof panel 140, and a weather strip 130 provided between an opening edge of the roof panel 140 and the movable panel 120 so as to serve as a sealing between the opening edge and the movable panel 120. The opening edge of the roof panel 140 is defined by an outer surface (a surface facing the left side in FIG. 6) of a flange portion 142 that extends vertically downward from a roof panel body 141. The weather strip 130 includes a trim portion 131 and a seal portion 137. The trim portion 131 has a substantially U-shaped cross section and includes a core 133 embedded into an inside of the trim portion 131. The seal portion 137 having a hollow configuration so as to be expanded from an outer surface of the trim portion 131. In order to assemble the weather strip 131 on the roof panel 140, the trim portion 131 is clamped by using a jig so that an opening of the trim portion 131 is narrowed, in a state where the flange portion 142 is accommodated inside of the trim portion 131. According to Patent reference 1, a sponge member 150 is provided at an inner surface of the trim portion 131 and an inner surface of the sponge member 150 is in a pressure contact with the flange portion 141.
According to the known roof apparatus 101 disclosed in Patent reference 1, the inner surface of the trim portion 131, more specifically, the sponge member 150, press-fittingly contacts with the flange portion 142 by clamping the trim portion 131 of the weather strip 130, and thus the weather strip 130 is assembled on the flange portion 142. However, once the opening of the trim portion 131 is enlarged due to an application of some force or due to other causes, an assembly state of the weather strip 130 may become unstable, which may decrease a sealing performance of the weather strip 130. Therefore, there remains room for improving a reliability of the weather strip of the known roof apparatus disclosed Patent reference 1
A need thus exists for a roof apparatus which is not susceptible to the drawback mentioned above.